


i'll fly away

by fluorescentgrey



Series: Empire Building [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Colorado, Great Depression, M/M, Trains, not that shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24671872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/fluorescentgrey
Summary: Colorado, 1930. Some reflection on the meaning of freedom.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Empire Building [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/358091
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	i'll fly away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [juliandarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliandarling/gifts).



The freighter that went under the Continental Divide at the edge of the Rockies came through Denver after midnight. Sirius had been waiting all day behind some fencing at the highway underpass, as James, who alleged to have done this years previous, had advised him. The trouble with advice from James was that it was rarely advisable to follow, but Sirius tended to follow it anyway. An outside observer might have said that he was not necessarily socialized to expect consequences for anything he did. One more thing he’d struggled to learn since the crash. In part because of his complete lack of awareness of potential consequences, and in part because he’d come in late in the evening previous from Wichita, he'd nodded off in the early evening and woke up with a start when the very train he needed to catch blew its whistle piercingly as it started to pick up speed to leave the yard. 

He got everything together as well as he could in the dark, still bleary-eyed and groggy, running like in a dream, gravel chafing under his feet, parallel against the hulking, roaring mass of the train in the deep gray darkness. Sometimes this made you feel like your ancestors might have when they were hunting mammoth. He caught up with a boxcar and tossed his pack in, got a hand around the edge of the door, and slipped. There was a second when he thought he was done for except that a hand from inside grasped him tightly by the wrist. 

It was always over more quickly than you thought. He went up and in by saving virtue of some instinctual life-preserving physical intelligence. The boxcar was moving under him and the wind whipping past the open door. The person who had saved his life was settling back into a nook of blankets and old newspapers in the corner. “Don't throw your pack in ‘til you’re sure you can get on,” this person said. He sounded young but his voice was tired. In the darkness his face was just a pale blur smeared with soot. “You could’ve lost the whole damn thing.” 

Sirius resented the assumption that he had no idea what he was doing, even though he had no idea what he was doing. “Well, thanks,” he said, pulling his own pack over to the opposite corner. 

He could think no more of it before he passed out again. The train went rolling on into the night. Sometimes he dreamed he was alone in an empty boat on an endless sea. 

\--

When he woke up again it was dawn. The other hobo was sitting in the open door of the boxcar, watching the mountains develop, slowly, silvery against the deep gray sky, like a photograph. Sirius supposed he should be cordial, so he dug out the day-old loaf of bread from his backpack and went to sit with the other hobo in the door. He hadn’t quite dared to do this yet, because putting your feet out of that thing seemed like the step before accidentally putting your entire body out of that thing. He'd seen people climb on top of the grain cars and ride up there like cowboys. This was entry level shit by comparison, but he was an entry level railhopper. He could tell just by looking that the other hobo knew. It was not quite a look of judgement but one of regretful understanding. Sirius passed him the loaf of bread anyway. 

“You missed the Moffat Tunnel,” said the other hobo, accepting it. He had to have been around Sirius’s age; his face was narrow with hunger but his hands were broad and rough. Boots beat to shit, clothes and skin almost the same smudgy nondescript gray. 

“Is that something special?” 

“Six miles long,” said the hobo, handing the loaf of bread back. “They just put in new track.” 

“You can tell?” 

“Yeah.” 

Sirius knew that asking _how_ would just lead to another one-word answer. So instead he said, “You must’ve been doing this for a long time.” 

“You could say that.” 

“I haven’t. As you can probably tell.” 

The other hobo nodded tersely. “Where’d you come from,” he said. 

“Boston.” 

“Crash got you in Boston?” 

Sirius shook his head. “I’m a writer,” he said. “Just thought I’d see what I could see. Listen to the stories and see what people have to say.” 

The other hobo seemed not to know whether to be surprised. He turned to watch the scenery beyond the tracks. Rags of snow in the deepest shadow. The still and silent green-black pines against the hills and the river, which moved like a sheet of gray glass. 

“Are you looking for work,” Sirius asked him. 

“Can’t seem to find it.” 

It seemed to Sirius that a lot of people had just resigned themselves to the fact that there wasn’t any. Other people kept on throwing themselves against the wall of it again and again and again. 

“If I was a writer,” the hobo said, “I would stay at home and write about new record albums.” 

Sirius laughed to try to drown his own embarrassment. 

“I’m serious. You nearly died last night.” 

“I was half asleep!” 

“You must be dead lucky.” There was a note of resentment in the tired voice, just a single wrong note, like a badly tuned violin poisoning an entire symphony. “You should stick with me so that it might rub off.” 

“Well where are you headed now?” 

“God damn.” The other hobo rubbed the back of his neck contemplatively. There was a freckle back there just at the base of his hairline and a strange scar that emerged from the rumpled collar of his coat. “I thought you said you were listening to the stories,” he said. “You can’t be a very goddamn good listener because everybody and their goddamn mother is going to California!” 

“Jeez, alright. I didn’t want to assume!” 

“I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere at all,” the hobo said. “I suppose you’re floating like a goddamn dandelion seed. You don’t have to — ” He’d seen Sirius try to surreptitiously pull his feet back inside the car. “I’m not gonna push you out, who do you think I am?” 

“I don’t know,” Sirius said. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s — maybe you should be in an insane asylum,” the other hobo said, “for choosing this life. That’s all.” 

Sirius had been told such a thing before, not least by his parents, but for other things, not about this. “You don’t find — the freedom — ”

“I think the freedom is if…” His face softened and Sirius saw that in another gentler life he might have been a grade school teacher. “The freedom is in the choice. Do you see?” 

Beyond them in the still morning canyon the mountains were coming loose from the fog.

\---

\--

-

**Author's Note:**

> this story was written for julian in grateful acknowledgement of his donation to the okra project, which supports Black trans people in need -- a perfect organization to support right now in honor of pride month and the Black Lives Matter movement! i'm doing an [ongoing fundraising drive](https://yeats-infection.tumblr.com/post/620033047264378880/ok-everybody-i-hope-youve-seen-my-post-from-last) to support racial justice organizations and protestors - if you'd like to take part, and i hope you will, please give and message me with proof (on tumblr or at fgreyfx @ gmail) and i will write you something. 
> 
> you can [watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HkSMWxEUuA) what this train ride looks like if you want. unfortunately i have already named a story on ao3 after the best blues song of the great depression, "hard time killing floor blues" by skip james, so this story is named after [this one instead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--kI7JTn5as). 
> 
> because it feels wrong to publish HP fic right now without this caveat, i also want to make it clear that all my fic is a no TERFs allowed zone. trans rights are human rights and my works are not for you! i hope you will join me in raising a stiff middle finger to joanne, calling out transphobia when you see it, and donating to charities that support trans people in need, like [mermaids UK](https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/) and/or [the okra project](https://www.theokraproject.com/).


End file.
